COLLAPSE: HOW SOCIETIES CHOOSE TO FAIL OR SURVIVE

Since the end of the last ice age some 12,000 years ago (a mere blink of geological time), humans have come together in societies of ever increasing complexity. Many have crashed. Some have survived. Why? Is there a methodology of collapse or survival?

Jared Diamond is not the first to put together issues across a spectrum which reaches from archaeology and history to biology, psychology and economics. But he brings detailed knowledge, personal experience and fresh insights of a kind already seen in his earlier works The Third Chimpanzee and Guns, Germs and Steel. His new book is designed to persuade us to think differently, and he succeeds triumphantly.

Diamond distinguishes five main factors which bear on the failure or success of a society. First is the way in which its members treat their geographical environment. Obviously some environments are more robust than others so experience in one place is not necessarily relevant in another. Next comes climatic change however caused, and whether favourable or unfavourable. Then comes hostile relationships with neighbours or invaders. Then there are trading relationships. Some societies are critically dependant on raw materials from others, whether forest products, food or – today – coal, oil and gas. Last is how societies respond to the inevitable stresses which arise from these factors or combinations of them. As can be seen many times in history, such responses can be very different. There resilience can be tested by such unexpected events as a hit from space or – as last month – a tsunami. To Diamond's list could be added other factors: for example the effects of complexity and hierarchy in urban societies, and the tendency evident in humans as in other animals to proliferate when times are good and to crash when times are bad.

The case studies make fascinating reading. There are the micro societies of Easter Island, Mangareva, Pitcairn, Tikopia and Henderson in the Pacific. Easter Island is a classic case. The first few Polynesians arrived in their canoes some time before 900 AD. In a fragile environment, they cut down the trees, cultivated the relatively poor soils, vastly increased their own numbers, possibly to around 15,000, and divided the land into competing and sometimes warring clans. It was mostly between 1400 and 1600 that most of the extraordinary statues and their supporting platforms were constructed. By 1722 when the Dutch explorer Rogerveen arrived, society had all but collapsed. The few living people in a bare and devastated landscape had suffered from total isolation and food shortages, and had even been driven to cannibalism. One of Diamond's students put the key question: "What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?" The response could have been that of some present day loggers or politicians: "jobs not trees" or "technology will find an answer" or "we need more research".

For macro societies we know broadly what happened to the Anasazi and their neighbours in the south west of the United States from around 700 AD onwards. There the fundamental problem was – and is – a precarious environment for agriculture. Deforestation and soil exhaustion, made worse in some regions by salinisation from irrigation agriculture, came together with population increase to put society on a dangerous edge. With the severe droughts of the 12th century, people could no longer cope as they had done in the past. They had to flee or starve. In modern Arizona or California there are the same problems. Immigration is still increasing. In some areas the price of water is subsidised so that it makes commercial sense to supply golf courses from reserves of fossil water. Yet the whole area is in the seventh year of a drought, with more drought predicted as part of global warming.

The collapse of Maya society in southern Mexico in the 8th or 9th centuries is still the subject of argument. It was not the only pre-Columbian society to have crashed. In the 6th century the great city of Teotihuacan, among the largest in the world at the time, came to grief. Indeed there is a regular pattern of collapse in pre-Columbian societies, followed in almost all cases by regeneration on the spot or not far away. There are many of the same factors: deforestation, soil exhaustion, over population, endemic quarrels between city states, complexity leading to widening gaps between rulers and ruled, and, perhaps as the tipping point, climatic change in the form of droughts.

The story of the Viking colonisation of the North Atlantic has special aspects. The settlements on the north east tip of Newfoundland were a bridge too far. Vinland (as the best known settlement was called) was remote even from Greenland, lacking in key raw materials, and already well populated by indigenous people. No wonder that it was soon abandoned. By contrast those on the south west tip of Greenland had a relatively long life. There the main hazards were gradual climatic cooling, and eventual failure to respond to the special character of the environment. The Norse proved incapable of learning from the indigenous Inuit (whom they seem to have despised), and stuck to their inappropriate values and methods.

Of more modern case histories, Diamond looks at two disasters, one relative success, two of high vulnerability (Japan and Australia), and one of global dimensions which combines almost everything. An unequivocal disaster was the collapse followed by genocide in Rwanda and Burundi. Thomas Malthus, who first worked out the relationship between rates of population increase and food supply, would have felt himself vindicated. Add a history of disputes between Hutu and Tutsi (and even some within these communities), environmental degradation, increasing poverty and climate change, and there is a lethal cocktail.

A contrast between relative disaster and relative success can be seen in the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. On one side of a north south line is Haiti, and on the other the Dominican Republic. The environment is not all that different and both former colonies have histories of corrupt and arbitrary government. But the contrasts are enormous. Haiti, now one of the poorest countries in the world with a denuded environment, is a classic case of disaster; while the Dominican Republic is many times richer, still well forested and with lower population density and growth. How did this happen? The answers are at least partly cultural, and relate to leadership. In the Dominican Republic one President made it his policy to protect the environment (to the extent of shooting illegal loggers), to defy certain vested interests and to enlist public opinion on his side. Whether this will continue remains to be seen.

Last is the case of China with its varied environments and huge population. The environmental history of China over the last few thousand years has recently been explored elsewhere. It is one of regional boom and bust and boom. Much of China suffers from deforestation, desertification and loss of biodiversity, and the rush to the big cities is creating new hazards. Industrial development sometimes seems out of control. In addition the Chinese National Academy of Sciences foresees substantial climate change with different and potentially dangerous new patterns of rainfall. Yet the present Chinese leadership seems better aware than most of the perils. It is introducing new methodologies to measure wealth and well being, and is trying to correct what Diamond calls the lurches between accelerating environmental damage, and accelerating environmental pollution. Curiously he says nothing about the performance of the United States in this respect, although he well brings out the contradictions in Montana.

In the words of the title of this remarkable book, how do societies choose to fail or survive? It is central to Diamond's thesis that there is an element of choice, and no inevitability in what happens. Time after time there is a failure to foresee the problems likely to arise when people move into an unfamiliar environment. Then there is often a failure to recognise problems when they do arise. They do not fit past experience and so are all too easily ignored or denied. Finally there is a failure to cope even when the solutions are obvious. Here new conflicts arise: between short term advantage and long term respect for the public interest. Like the person who cut down the last tree on Easter Island, people's needs are real and immediate, but their minds are often elsewhere: states, cities, corporations and individuals are in competition with each other. Even today how many economists bring long term values into their calculations?

In short we have to change our minds, and this needs three things: leadership from individuals or institutions; pressure from those adversely affected; and a catastrophe or two, preferably not too devastating, to make obvious and urgent the need for change. Our present situation is unique. For the first time the problems are global. The human footprint is everywhere. What happens in one place very soon affects what happens in another. Information travels almost instantaneously world wide. Nation states exercise diminishing control over their affairs while global institutions have yet to acquire accountability. Here disasters like the Asian tsunami may eventually lead to greater global responsibility. At the same time society has become more vulnerable, not just to terrorism or use of exotic weapons, but also to breakdown of the electronic systems on which people increasingly depend, and the effects of widening gaps between rich and poor.

Diamond writes clearly and engagingly throughout, although his text could have been pruned. He ends on a note of slightly forced optimism. Understanding of interconnectedness is essential for the management of any society, whether seen from top down or from bottom up. It requires that we see problems in terms of each other, and act before too late, always assuming that we have the will to do so. That is a big assumption.